The Everton midfielder Jack Rodwell could be off to Chelsea in January. Photograph: Craig Brough/Action Images

Upon taking up its crowbar and jemmying open today's advent calendar window, the Rumour Mill was surprised to find a little chocolate Jack Rodwelldressed in Chelsea kit. The Christmas of Everton fans will be considerably less merry than they were expecting once they see the Daily Mail "exclusive" that suggests André Villas-Boas has written to Father Christmas and asked him to deliver the 20-year-old Everton midfielder to Stamford Bridge in the January transfer window.

With the Toffees thought to value their prize asset at £20m, but Chelsea likely to offer just a little over half that amount, expect a month of apparently interminable haggling between the two clubs before a breathless Sky Sports News reporter announces a deal has been done some time around 8pm on 31 January, before returning to the sanctuary of his warm car.

Should Rodwell leave the Merseyside club he's played for since he was just seven years old and move to Big London, he'll have his pick of dressing-room pegs to choose from, what with the Chelsea wingers Florent Malouda and Salomon Kalou both likely to have their heads turned by the prospect of lucrative moves to Russia. Both players are wanted by the preposterously rich Dagestan outfit Anzhi Makhachkala, who are willing to reward them with a combined weekly stipend of £270,000 a week. Lokomotiv Moscow have also expressed interest in signing up Kalou, whose contract at Stamford Bridge expires at the end of the season.

Having signed the midfield enforcer Cheik Tioté from FC Twente for a steal at £3.5m, the Newcastle United chairman Mike Ashley could further enrage long-suffering Geordies by cashing in on the Ivorian and selling him to Manchester United at a £16.5m profit. United scouts are reported to have sat in the Your Name Here For Quids Arena for Newcastle's scoreless draw with Swansea last weekend, monitoring the Ivorian and writing superlatives in their little notebooks. Liverpool also like the cut of Tioté's jib, while the Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson is also being linked with the Basle midfielder Xherdan Shaqiri and his Benfica counterpart Nicolas Gaitán, whom he got to admire close up and personal as they helped eliminate his side from the Champions League.

The Croatia winger Daniel Pranjic is unwanted by Bayern Munich and could find himself sold or shipped out on loan to – deep breath – Newcastle, Sunderland, Wolves, Everton, Liverpool or Chelsea in a few weeks time. Wolves are also interested in ending Craig Gardner's Sunderland pain, with the midfielder unsettled on Wearside and hoping to a secure a move back to the Midlands, from where he came. Although Sunderland's new manager Martin O'Neill has been talking up Gardner, who failed to secure a first-team berth under Steve Bruce, selling the player on would help raise funds for a much-needed centre-forward.

Obviously no Rumour Mill would be complete without Tottenham Hotspur being linked with somebody or other, and this morning's likely lads are FC Twente's Bulgarian goalkeeper Nikolay Mihaylov and Shrewsbury Town's teenage defender Connor Goldson. Meanwhile at beleaguered Blackburn Rovers, the manager Steve Kean-Out has revealed that he and his veterandefender Míchel Salgado have one thing in common: neither of them will be at the club next season. The Spanish defender's contract expires in the summer and should the opportunity arise, Rovers will ship him out elsewhere in January. "Míchel won't be here next season," said Kean, who will almost certainly get bounced unceremoniously out the Ewood Park exit door before the Spaniard. "If there is an opportunity for him to find another solution in this window that is something we would look at. [It is] out of respect for the player to give him the heads up that this will be his last season."

And finally, Milan suits will discussthe nitty-gritty of Carlos Tevez's in-no-way tediously inevitable move to Milan with their Manchester City counterparts on Thursday, while the Queens Park Rangers manager Neil Warnock will duke it out with Kenny Dalglish, Martin O'Neill and Alan Pardew in order to see who gets to boss the Rangers striker Nikica Jelavic around the training field. Look, funny cats!